Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	body_n	soul_n	union_n	6,110	5	9.7698	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A20628	Deaths duell, or, A consolation to the soule, against the dying life, and liuing death of the body Deliuered in a sermon at White Hall, before the Kings Maiesty, in the beginning of Lent, 1630. By that late learned and reuerend diuine, Iohn Donne, Dr. in Diuinity, & Deane of S. Pauls, London. Being his last sermon, and called by his Maiesties houshold the doctors owne funerall sermon.	Donne, John, 1572-1631.; Droeshout, Martin, b. 1601, engraver.	1632 (1632)	STC 7031; ESTC S102388	18,424	54

wee are dead yet hee sayes Peregrinamur whilest wee are in the body wee are but in a pilgrimage and wee are absent from the Lord hee might haue sayd dead for this whole world is but an vniuersall churchyard but our common graue and the life motion that the greatest persons haue in it is but as the shaking of buried bodies in their graue by an earth-quake That which we call life is but Hebdomada mortium a weeke of death seauen dayes seauen periods of our life spent in dying a dying seauen times ouer and there is an end Our birth dyes in infancy and our infancy dyes in youth and youth and the rest dye in age and age also dyes and determines all Nor doe all these youth out of infancy or age out of youth arise so as a Phoenix out of the ashes of another Phoenix formerly dead but as a waspe or a serpent out of a caryon or as a Snake out of dung Our youth is worse then our infancy and our age worse then our youth Our youth is hungry and thirsty after those sinnes which our infancy knew not And our age is sory and angry that it cannot pursue those sinnes which our youth did besides al the way so many deaths that is so many deadly calamities accompany euery condition and euery period of this life as that death it selfe would bee an ease to them that suffer them Vpon this sense doth Iob wish that God had not giuen him an issue from the first death from the wombe Wherefore hast thou brought me forth out of the wombe O that I had giuen vp the Ghost and no eye seene me I should haue beene as though I had not beene And not only the impatient Israelites in their murmuring would to God wee had dyed by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt but Eliah himselfe when he fled from Iesabell and went for his life as that text sayes vnder the Iunipertree requested that hee might dye sayd it is enough now O Lord take away my life So Ionah iustifies his impatience nay his anger towards God himselfe Now ô Lord take I beseech thee my life from mee for it is better to dye then to liue And when God asked him doest thou well to be angry for this he replyes I doe well to be angry euen vnto death how much worse a death then death is this life which so good men would so often change for death But if my case bee as Saint Paules case quotidiè morior that I dye dayly that something heauier then death fall vpon me euery day If my case be Dauids case tota die mortificamur all the day long wee are killed that not onely euery day but euery houre of the day some thing heauier then death fall vpon me though that bee true of me Conceptus in peccatis I was shapen in iniquity and in sinne did my mother conceiue me there I dyed one death though that be true of me Natus filius irae I was borne not onely the child of sinne but the child of wrath of the wrath of God for sinne which is a heauier death Yet Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis with God the Lord are the issues of death and after a Iob and a Ioseph and a Ieremie and a Daniel I cannot doubt of a deliuerance And if no other deliuerance conduce more to his glory and my good yet he hath the keys of death and hee can let me out at that dore that is deliuer me from the manifold deaths of this world theomni die and the tota die the euery dayes death euery houres death by that one death the finall dissolution of body and soule the end of all But then is that the end of all Is that dissolution of body and soule the last death that the body shall suffer for of spirituall death wee speake not now It is not though this be exitus à morte It is introitus in mortem though it bee an issue from manifold deaths of this world yet it is an entrance into the death of corruption and putrefaction vermiculation and incineration and dispersion in and from the graue in which euery dead man dyes ouer againe It was a prerogatiue peculiar to Christ not to dy this death not to see corruption what gaue him this priuiledge Not Iosephs great proportion of gummes and spices that might haue preserued his body from corruption and incineration longer then he needed it longer then three dayes but it would not haue done it for euer what preserued him then did his exemption and freedome from originall sinne preserue him from this corruption and incineration 't is true that original sinne hath induced this corruption and incineration vpon vs If wee had not sinned in Adam mortality had not put on immortality as the Apostle speakes no corruption had not put on incorruption but we had had our transmigration from this to the other world without any mortality any corruption at all But yet since Christ tooke sinne vpon him so farre as made him mortall he had it so farre too as might haue made him see this corruption and incineration though he had no originall sinne in himself what preseru'd him then Did the hypostaticall vnion of both natures God and Man preserue him from this corruption and incineration 't is true that this was a most powerfull embalming to be embalmd with the diuine nature it selfe to bee embalmd with eternity was able to preserue him from corruption and incineration for euer And he was embalmd so embalmd with the diuine nature it selfe euen in his body as well as in his soule for the Godhead the divine nature did not depart but remained still vnited to his dead body in the graue But yet for al this powerful embalming his hypostaticall vnion of both natures we see Christ did dye and for all his vnion which made him God and Man hee became no man for the vnion of the body and soule makes the man and hee whose soule and body are separated by death as long as that state lasts is properly no man And therefore as in him the dissolution of body and soule was no dissolution of the hypostaticall vnion so is there nothing that constraines vs to say that though the flesh of Christ had seene corruption and incineration in the graue this had bene any dissolution of the hypostaticall vnion for the diuine nature the Godhead might haue remained with all the Elements and principles of Christs body aswell as it did with the two constitutiue parts of his person his body and his soul. This incorruption then was not in Iosephs gummes and spices nor was it in Christs innocency and exemption from originall sin nor was it that is it is not necessary to say it was in the hypostaticall vnion But this incorruptiblenes of his flesh is most conueniently plac'd in that Non dabis thou wilt not suffer thy holy

offices of the foundations of the butteresses of the contignation of this our building That he that is our God is the God of all saluation because vnto this God the Lord belong the issues of death First then we consider this exitus mortis to bee liberatio à morte that with God the Lord are the issues of death and therefore in all our death and deadly calamities of this life wee may iustly hope of a good issue from him In all our periods and transitions in this life are so many passages from death to death our very birth and entrance into this life is exitus à morte an issue from death for in our mothers wombe wee are dead so as that wee doe not know wee liue not so much as wee doe in our sleepe neither is there any graue so close or so putrid a prison as the wombe would be vnto vs if we stayed in it beyond our time or dyed there before our time In the graue the wormes doe not kill vs wee breed and feed and then kill those wormes which wee our selues produc'd In the wombe the dead child kills the Mother that conceiued it is a murtherer nay a parricide euen after it is dead And if wee bee not dead so in the wombe so as that being dead wee kill her that gaue vs our first life our life of vegetation yet wee are dead so as Dauids Idols are dead In the wombe wee haue eyes and see not eares and heare not There in the wombe wee are fitted for workes of darkenes all the while depriued of light And there in the wombe wee are taught cruelty by being fed with blood and may be damned though we be neuer borne Of our very making in the wombe Dauid sayes I am wonderfully and fearefully made and such knowledge is too excellent for me for euen that is the Lords doing and it is wonderfull in our eyes Ipse fecit nos it is hee that hath made vs and not wee our selues nor our parents neither Thy hands haue made me and fashioned me round about saith Iob and as the originall word is thou hast taken paines about me and yet sayes he thou doest destroy me Though I bee the Master peece of the greatest Master man is so yet if thou doe no more for me if thou leaue me where thou madest mee destruction will follow The wombe which should be the house of life becomes death it selfe if God leaue vs there That which God threatens so often the shutting of the womb is not so heauy nor so discomfortable a curse in the first as in the latter shutting nor in the shutting of barrennes as in the shutting of weakenes when children are come to the birth and no strength to bring forth It is the exaltation of misery to fall from a neare hope of happines And in that vehement imprecation the Prophet expresses the highest of Gods anger giue them ô Lord what wilt thougiue them giue them a miscarying wombe Therefore as soone as wee are men that is inanimated quickned in the womb thogh we cannot our selues our parents haue to say in our behalf wretched man that he is who shall deliuer him from this body of death for euen the wombe is a body of death if there bee no deliuerer It must be he that said to Ieremy Before I formed thee I knew thee and befored thou camest out of the wombe I sanctified thee Wee are not sure that there was no kinde of shippe nor boate to fish in nor to passe by till God prescribed Noah that absolute form of the Arke That word which the holy Ghost by Moses vseth for the Arke is common to all kinde of boates Theball and is the same word that Moses vseth for the boate that he was exposed in That his mother layed him in an arke of bulrushes But we are sure that Eue had no Midwife when she was deliuered of Cain therefore shee might well say possedi virum à Domino I haue gotten a man from the Lord wholly entirely from the Lord It is the Lord that enabled me to conceiue The Lord that infus'd a quickning soule into that conception the Lord that brought into the world that which himselfe had quickened without all this might Eue say My body had bene but the house of death and Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis to God the Lord belong the issues of death But then this exitus a morte is but introitus in mortem this issue this deliuerance from that death the death of the wombe is an entrance a deliuering ouer to another death the manifold deathes of this world wee haue a winding sheete in our Mothers wombe which growes with vs from our conception and wee come into the world wound vp in that winding sheet for wee come to seeke a graue And as prisoners discharg'd of actions may lye for fees so when the wombe hath discharg'd vs yet we are bound to it by cordes of hestae by such a string as that wee cannot goe thence nor stay there wee celebrate our owne funeralls with cryes euen at our birth as though our threescore and ten years life were spent in our mothers labour and our circle made vp in the first point thereof we begge our Baptisme with another Sacrament with teares And we come into a world that lasts many ages but wee last not in domo Patris says our Sauiour speaking of heauen multae mansiones there are many mansions diuers and durable so that if a man cannot possesse a martyrs house he hath shed no blood for Christ yet hee may haue a Confessors he hath bene ready to glorifie God in the shedding of his blood And if a woman cannot possesse a virgins house she hath embrac'd the holy state of mariage yet she may haue a matrons house she hath brought forth and brought vp children in the feare of God In domo patris in my fathers house in heauen there are many mansions but here vpon earth the sonne of man hath not where to lay his head sayes he himselfe Nonne terram dedit filijs hominum how then hath God giuen this earth to the sonnes of men hee hath giuen them earth for their materialls to bee made of earth and hee hath giuen them earth for their graue and sepulture to returne and resolue to earth but not for their possession Here wee haue no continuing citty nay no cottage that continues nay no persons no bodies that continue Whatsoeuer moued Saint Ierome to call the iournies of the Israelites in the wildernes mansions The word the word is Nasang signifies but a iourney but a peregrination Euen the Israel of God hath no mansions but iournies pilgrimages in this life By what measure did Iacob measure his life to Pharaoh the dayes of the years of my pilgrimage And though the Apostle would not say morimur that whilest wee are in the body

one to see corruption wee looke no further for causes or reasons in the mysteries of religion but to the will and pleasure of God Christ himselfe limited his inquisition in that ita est euen so Father for so it seemeth good in thy sight Christs body did not see corruption therefore because God had decreed it shold not The humble soule and onely the humble soule is the religious soule rests himselfe vpon Gods purposes and the decrees of God which he hath declared and manifested not such as are conceiued and imagined in our selues though vpon some probability some veresimilitude so in our present case Peter proceeds in his Sermon at Ierusalem so Paul in his at Antioch They preached Christ to haue bene risen without seeing corruption not onely because God had decreed it but because he had manifested that decree in his Prophet therefore doth Saint Paul cite by speciall number the second psalme for that decree And therefore both Saint Peter S. Paul cite for it that place in the 16. psalme for when God declares his decree and purpose in the expresse words of his Prophet or when he declares it in the reall execution of the decree then he makes it ours then he manifests it to vs. And therfore as the Mysteries of our Religion are not the obiects of our reason but by faith we rest on Gods decree and purpose It is so ô God because it is thy will it should be so so Gods decrees are euer to be considered in the manifestation thereof All manifestation is either in the word of God or in the execution of the decree And when these two concur and meete it is the strongest demonstration that can be when therefore I finde those markes of adoption and spirituall filiation which are deliuered in the word of God to be vpon me when I finde that reall execution of his good purpose vpon me as that actually I doe liue vnder the obedience and vnder the conditions which are euidences of adoption and spirituall filiation Then so long as I see these markes and liue so I may safely comfort my selfe in a holy certitude and a modest infallibility of my adoption Christ determines himself in that the purpose of God was manifest to him S. Peter and S. Paul determine themselues in those two wayes of knowing the purpose of God the word of God before the execution of the decree in the fulnes of time It was prophecyed before say they and it is performed now Christ is risen without seeing corruption Now this which is so singularly peculiar to him that his flesh should not see corruption at his second coming his coming to Iudgement shall extend to all that are then a liue their Hestae shall not see corruption because as th' Apostle sayes and sayes as a secret as a mystery Behold I shew you a mistery wee shall not all sleepe that is not continue in the state of the dead in the graue but wee shall all be changed in an instant we shall haue a dissolution and in the same instant a redintgeration a recompacting of body and soule and that shall be truely a death truely a resurrection but no sleeping in corruption But for vs that dye now and sleepe in the state of the dead we must al passe this posthume death this death after death nay this death after buriall this dissolution after dissolution this death of corruption and putrifaction of vermiculation and incineration of dissolution and dispersion in and from the graue when these bodies that haue beene the children of royall parents the parents of royall children must say with Iob Corruption thou art my father and to the Worme thou art my mother my sister Miserable riddle when the same worme must bee my mother and my sister and myselfe Miserable incest when I must bee maried to my mother and my sister and bee both father and mother to my owne mother and sister beget beare that worme which is all that miserable penury when my mouth shall be filled with dust and the worme shall feed and feed sweetely vpon me when the ambitious man shall haue no satisfaction if the poorest aliue tread vpon him nor the poorest receiue any contentment in being made equall to Princes for they shall bee equall but in dust One dyeth at his full strength being wholly at ease in quiet and another dyes in the bitternes of his soul and neuer eates with pleasure but they lye downe alike in the dust and the worme covers them In Iob and in Esay it couers them and is spred vnder them the worme is spred vnder thee and the worme couers thee There 's the Mats and the Carpets that lye vnder and there 's the State and the Canapye that hangs ouer the greatest of the sons of men Euen those bodies that were the temples of the holy Ghost come to this dilapidation to ruine to rubbidge to dust euen the Israel of the Lord and Iacob himselfe hath no other specification no other denomination but that vermis Iacob thou worme of Iacob Truely the consideration of this posthume death this death after buriall that after God with whom are the issues of death hath deliuered me from the death of the wombe by bringing mee into the world and from the manifold deaths of the world by laying me in the graue I must dye againe in an Incineration of this flesh and in a dispersion of that dust That that Monarch who spred ouer many nations aliue must in his dust lye in a corner of that sheete of lead and there but so long as that lead will laste and that priuat and retir'd man that thought himselfe his owne for euer and neuer came forth must in his dust of the graue bee published and such are the reuolutions of the graues bee mingled with the dust of euery high way and of euery dunghill and swallowed in euery puddle and pond This is the most inglorious and contemptible vilification the most deadly and peremptory nullification of man that wee can consider God seemes to haue caried the declaration of his power to a great height when hee sets the Prophet Ezechiel in the valley of drye bones sayes Sonne of man can these bones liue as though it had bene impossible and yet they did The Lord layed Sinewes vpon them and flesh and breath into them and they did liue But in that case there were bones to bee seene something visible of which it might be sayd can this thing liue But in this death of incineration and dispersion of dust wee see nothing that wee call that mans If we say can this dust liue perchance it cannot it may bee the meere dust of the earth which neuer did liue never shall It may be the dust of that mans worme which did liue but shall no more It may bee the dust of another man that concernes not him of whom it is askt This death of

incineration and dispersion is to naturall reason the most irrecouerable death of all yet Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis vnto God the Lord belong the issues of death and by recompacting this dust into the same body reanimating the same body with the same soule hee shall in a blessed and glorious resurrection giue mee such an issue from this death as shal neuer passe into any other death but establish me into a life that shall last as long as the Lord of life himselfe And so haue you that that belongs to the first acceptation of these words vnto God the Lord belong the issues of death That though from the wombe to the graue and in the graue it selfe wee passe from death to death yet as Daniel speakes the Lord our God is able to deliuer vs and hee will deliuer vs. And so wee passe vnto our second accommodation of these words vnto God the Lord belong the issues of death That it belongs to God and not to man to passe a iudgement vpon vs at our death or to conclude a dereliction on Gods part vpon the manner thereof Those indications which the Physitians receiue and those presagitions which they giue for death or recouery in the patient they receiue and they giue out of the grounds and the rules of their art But we haue no such rule or art to giue a presagition of spirituall death damnation vpon any such iudication as wee see in any dying man wee see often enough to be sory but not to despaire wee may bee deceiued both wayes wee vse to comfort our selfe in the death of a friend if it be testified that he went away like a Lambe that is without any reluctation But God knowes that may bee accompanied with a dangerous damp and stupefaction insensibility of his present state Our blessed Sauiour suffered coluctations with death and a sadnes euen in his soule to death and an agony euen to a bloody sweate in his body and expostulations with God exclamations vpon the crosse He was a deuout man who said vpon his death bed or dead turfe for hee was an Heremit septuaginta annos Domino seruiuisti mori times hast thou serued a good Master threescore and ten yeaes and now art thou loath to goe into his presence yet Hilarion was loath Bartaam was a deuout man an Heremit too that sayd that day hee dyed Cogita te hodie coepisse seruire Domino hodie finiturum Consider this to be the first days seruice that euer thou didst thy Master to glorifie him in a Christianly and a constant death and if thy first day be thy last day too how soone dost thou come to receiue thy wages yet Bartaam could haue beene content to haue stayd longer forth Make no ill conclusions vpon any mans loathnes to dye for the mercies of God worke momentarily in minutes and many times insensibly to bystanders or any other then the party departing And then vpon violent deaths inflicted as vpon malefactors Christ himselfe hath forbidden vs by his owne death to make any ill conclusion for his owne death had those impressions in it He was reputed he was executed as a malefactor no doubt many of them who concurred to his death did beleeue him to bee so Of sudden death there are scarce examples to be found in the scriptures vpon good men for death in battaile cannot be called suden death But God gouernes not by examples but by rules and therefore make no ill conclusion vpon sudden death nor vpon distempers neither though perchance accompanied with some words of diffidence and distrust in the mercies of God The treelyes as it falles its true but it is not the last stroake that fells the tree nor the last word nor gaspe that qualifies the soule Stil pray wee for a peaceable life against violent death for time of repentance against sudden death and for sober and modest assurance against distemperd and diffident death but neuer make ill conclusions vpon persons ouertaken with such deaths Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis to God the Lord belong the issues of death And he receiued Sampson who went out of this world in such a manner consider it actiuely consider it passiuely in his owne death and in those whom he slew with himselfe as was subiect to interpretation hard enough Yet the holy Ghost hath moued S. Paul to celebrate Sampson in his great Catalogue and so doth all the Church Our criticall day is not the very day of our death but the whole course of our life I thanke him that prayes for me when Quid apertius diceretur sayes hee there what can bee more obuious more manifest then this sense of these words In the former part of this verse it is sayd He that is our God is the God of saluation Deus salvos fariendi so hee reads it the God that must saue vs. Who can that be sayes he but lesus for therefore that name was giuen him because he was to saue vs. And to this lesus sayes he this Sauiour belongs the issues of death Nec oportuit eum de hac vita alios exitus habere quam mortis Being come into this life in our mortal nature He could not goe out of it any other way but by death Ideo dictum sayes he therefore it is sayd To God the Lord belong the issues of death vt ostenderetur moriendo nos saluos facturum to shew that his way to saue vs was to dye And from this text doth Saint Isodore proue that Christ was truely Man which as many sects of heretiques denyed as that he was truely God because to him though he were Dominus Dominus as the text doubles it God the Lord yet to him to God the Lord belong'd the issues of death oportuit eum pati more can not be sayd then Christ himselfe sayes of himselfe These things Christ ought to suffer hee had no other way but by death So then this part of our Sermon must needes be a passion Sermon since all his life was a continuall passion all our Lent may well bee a continuall good Fryday Christs painefull life tooke off none of the paines of his death hee felt not the lesse then for hauing felt so much before Nor will any thing that shall be sayd before lessen but rather in large the deuotion to that which shall be sayd of his passion at the time of due solemnization thereof Christ bled nor a droppe the lesse at the last for hauing bled at his Circumcision before nor wil you a teare the lesse then if you shed some now And therefore bee now content to consider with mee how to this God the Lord belong'd the issues of death That God this Lord the Lord of life could dye is a strange contemplation That the red Sea could bee drie That the Sun could stand still that an Ouen could be seauen times heat and not burne That Lions could be